Merseyside Maritime Museum: Sail Away: Liverpool Shipping Posters

This display features 14 posters dating from 1888 to 1980, advertising Liverpool shipping companies. Many of these posters have never been on display before.

They are a record of the style, glamour and excitement of a long-gone era when sailing by liner was the only way travel. Starting out as simple bills of sailing, over time shipping company advertisements developed into highly designed full colour posters that reflected the changing needs and aspirations of passengers.

From emigrant services, through the age of luxury transatlantic liners, to latter day cruise ships, posters are snapshots from a time when global travel was still an unusual and often exotic undertaking. Together these posters show the changing face of passenger travel by sea.